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This is the biggest painting I have done in a very long time, it’s 20″ x 16″. I was quite nervous painting this because of the three people I had to get right, but I’m quite happy with how it came out. I am not entirely satisfied; there are things I would change if this were done in oils or acrylics, but I can’t do that with watercolors. I still have lots to learn…

I made a painting inspired by Magritte’s Son of Man. I painted on canvas one more time even though I am not enjoying the process much. I have one more canvas painting left to do to finish my little family portraits project and then I’ll never do watercolor on canvas again.

For this painting, because I wanted to do a really good job, I bought some Grumbacher paints – 12 x 7.5ml tubes for $60 (Canadian). I should have just restocked my Winsor and Newton because the new paints proved to be very grainy, hard to mix and when trying to layer the paints, they just washed away. It was annoying to work with. I still have a lot to learn. This painting is going to travel to Spain and that’s exciting.

This painting gave me trouble. The light is coming slightly from the back and to the side, so the face is supposed to be mostly in shadow, but I chickened out and didn’t do the shadow part as dark as it should have been. There are quite a few layers of paint on the face as I tried to darken it step by step, but I finally had to stop myself before I made it too much of a mess. With watercolor, if I don’t get it right in the first step, I find it hard to fix without making it look muddy.

I think I made her smirk bigger than it is in real life, but what I really wanted to try painting was her jacket and the fake fur lining. I also loved her red hair, but I didn’t want to go into too much detail with it. She has very fine baby hair, so I wanted to barely render it.

This is the man in my life, the kind and loving man that I am very lucky to have met. I picked to paint this because I wanted to play with the light coming from behind. I usually like painting when the light comes from a side because the features are outlined better and are easier to see. In this case his whole face was in the shadow and I liked the challenge.

We have a Darth Vader Halloween mask around the house. My baby loves to wear it and roar. It’s really funny and cute (to his parents only probably). I decided to paint it for a humorous painting and to add a fun Star Wars themed background too. I hope it makes you chuckle, if not ask “what in the world is that?”

I painted with watercolor on canvas again. It’s still frustrating, yet I want to try again. I think I can do better. It’s annoying because while the paint does get absorbed, it lacks the flow of watercolors. The paints move like acrylics, but are transparent.